BIAFRA : Scam in Biafra agitation process

Where is the map of Biafra?  This is the question I have often asked the promoters and sympathizers of the Biafra cause. Up till this moment, their responses have been feeble, vague, evasive and suspicious.

The present day, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Rivers and Bayelsa states were part of the former Eastern Region while Delta and Edo states known as Midwest Region were captured by the Biafra forces and declared Republic of Benin.

Indeed, this was the only reason why these states were sucked into the Biafra struggle without known prior consultation and consensus.

To allay the fears of the minorities and reassure them that they were safe within the Biafra union, late Lt-Col Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu then appointed late Major-General Philip Effiong, a minority from the present day Akwa Ibom State, as second-in-command in the Biafra hierarchy.

The geo-political setting of the country has since metamorphosed from the four-regional structure to six-geo-political grouping in consonant with ethnic, linguistics, cultural, historical, contiguous boundaries and affinity, leaving the Igbo in the Southeast and, the minorities in the South-south or Niger Delta geopolitical area.

The present day agitation for the sovereign state of Biafra, both the faction led by the Movement for the Sovereign State of Biafra (MOSSOB) and the Indigenous People Of Biafra (IPOB) and their leaders, have at different events, asserted that the South-south geo-political zone or Niger Delta region is part of Biafra.

This position is stripped of respect for minorities and a demonstration of might in the quest for territorial expansion.

How do you conscript an unwilling people from another region to be part of your conceived independent state without prior discussions and agreement on the form, organization and modality of administration?

It is this fear of domination and territorial ambition by the major ethnic groups that led to the setting up of the Willink Commission in 1957 to look into the fears of the minorities who were scared of the imbalance of the three-regional political structure, and this led to the creation of the fourth region, the Midwest in 1963.

By the body language, the Biafra gladiators are provoking a reenactment reminiscent of the old political structure.

The name, Biafra, has its origin from the Bight of Biafra, now Gulf of Guinea, a Portuguese name representing the West Coast from where waters flow into the Atlantic Ocean.  Biafra, still conjures false sense of one region based on the old four-regional structure.

The Niger Delta is no longer a kindergarten region.  Thus, the scramble for the region by other regions for purposes of annexation is exercise in futility.

If in the event that emerging development in the country makes separatist agitation inevitable in the future, the Niger Delta region is capable of governing itself as an independent sovereign state.